The downside is that many neurologists and internists still use conversion disorder (hysteria with physical symptoms) as a catch-all diagnosis for patients who are having their first MS attack. Many of us can attest to this first-hand, running the gauntlet of doctors who dismiss our weakness, numbness and brain fog as manifestations of mere stress, panic attacks, and depression, including yours truly.
My own anecdotal evidence sounds the echoes of Victorian-era attitudes towards women and illness and goes thusly:
In 1998, suffering symptoms that would turn out to be my first MS attack, I visited my PCP, who was a 30-year-old woman. I described and demonstrated my
numbness, weakness, and foot drop, as well as a
breathing problem that would later send me to the ER. Her first question was: “Do you ever have panic attacks?” Flabbergasted by this strange question, I denied ever having had one. “Well, I’m not going to give you steroids,” she went on, “because you came to me last month for an anti-depressant, and steroids can worsen depression.” Distressed, I voiced my concern that she wasn’t going to try to help me.
She stood over me, and wearing a look of mild contempt, chose my appointment time to express her view that women are basically hysterical, misbegotten creatures whose neurotic predispositions make it impossible for them to be taken seriously. She then turned her back on me and left the room.
Two weeks later, I saw a 65-year-old male neurologist who interviewed and tested me thoroughly. He did not offer to induce orgasm to assuage my feelings of powerlessness in a patriarchal society. Instead, he put me in the hospital for round-the-clock IV steroids and told me he was 90% sure I had MS.
‘Tis a tangled web you have woven, Dr. Freud.
